Papua New Guinea

National jurisdiction · as of 2026-09-07

Papua New Guinea's Classification of Publication (Censorship) Act 1989 (No. 18 of 1989) establishes the Censorship Board and the Office of the Chief Censor to classify publications, films, and advertising matter, and defines a minor as a person under the age of 18 years.

A publication classified as restricted, or a film or advertising matter classified as an “R” film, may not be sold, let on hire, displayed, or delivered to a minor, and a person in charge of a restricted publication area must not permit a minor to enter it; a person who publishes a classified publication or film otherwise than in accordance with these conditions, or who allows a minor to enter a restricted publication area, is guilty of an offence.

The Act does not apply to a publication sponsored by the National Government or a Provincial Government, and its definitions of “publish” and “publication” are confined to selling, hiring, exhibiting, screening, displaying, and advertising physical publications, films, and broadcasting; no provision extends the classification or supply-restriction scheme to an online service, and no separate law addresses social-media minor access, app-store age verification, or an age-appropriate design duty for a service likely to be accessed by children.

The National Information and Communication Technology Act 2009 empowers the Head of State to make content regulations covering advertising content and complaint handling for a licensed content service, but its own section 217(2) provides that the content regulations must not address censorship matters addressed by or under the Classification of Publication (Censorship) Act 1989, so it creates no age-related duty of its own.

The Cybercrime Code Act 2016 criminalises child pornography (s. 18) and child online grooming (s. 19) committed through an electronic system or device, and Part V imposes criminal liability on an ICT Service Provider that monitors or otherwise deals with illegal content it knows about, but each of these duties binds a person or provider generally rather than requiring an operator to verify or gate a user's age.

The Lukautim Pikinini Act 2015 (the Child Protection Act) bars publishing information identifying a child concerned in a protection proceeding (s. 96) and otherwise addresses parental responsibility, child protection orders, and family services, without any provision addressing an internet or online service.